Preschoolers' Understanding of Knowing-That and Knowing-How in the United States and Hong Kong.

Abstract

Two experiments on preschoolers' understanding of the effects of exposure on knowing-that and knowing-how were conducted with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (N=388) in 2 locations: a small midwestern city in the United States and a suburban area of Hong Kong, China. By using both English- and Chinese-speaking samples, the authors examined differences in children's understanding of knowing-that and knowing-how as well as the impact of different types of linguistic markers on the understanding of these concepts. Across both studies, in both locations, and for judging the knowledge of self or of others, children's understanding for knowing-that preceded their understanding for knowing-how. Implications of these findings both for universal patterns of theory-of-mind development and for how culture may impact on that development are discussed.